A flock of mallards quacked outside and a small wood stove crackled from within Rick Brown’s boat workshop on Lagoon Pond in Vineyard Haven, where he was sanding an oar and preparing to replace the ribs of a 14-foot wooden wherry.

Winter is the ideal season when wood shavings fly, drills and sanders sing and Vineyard boat builders assemble and repair boats.

At one of the Island’s smallest boat shops, Rick Brown of Far Cry Boats in Vineyard Haven is working on two. Space is a premium inside his 15 by 36-foot workshop with limited heat. His fragrant shop is at Maciel Marine, next door to John Thayer’s cabinet shop, and has one of the best views of Lagoon Pond. The air smells of fresh-cut oak.